Aphotic

Jupiterian's debut full-length album is an exaggerated performance of funeral doom/death metal, taking the doom of the Peaceville three and stripping it of the dramatic in order to make it slower and heavier, taking after Winter and forgoing the savagery to make it more ominous. Further into the funeral realm it goes, slower and darker. It is painfully slow - whether you embrace the pain or not, that is up to you.

A bit of the grime from the band's earlier works has been cleaned up, allowing their crushing dirges to flow for even longer, though the longer they go for, the more boring they get. The band's strength is making ominous sounds, looming amidst a funeral pace. Gloomy permeates even the slowest, simplest sections by design - that's just what the band does. Haunting melodies crawl across droning soundscapes on the title track - evoking a mood as they come out of the lethargic background noise. Jupiterian rely very heavily on immersing the listener in a brooding atmosphere, to paint their somber story across it.

The first half of the album is considerably stronger - more akin to classic doom/death and with much more going on. I enjoyed this part of the album, and it wouldn't be out of place on a second tier of the Peaceville stable. The second half is quite simply too slow and boring, droning way too much and only sparsely populating the thick background with sounds.

Half good, half not-so-good. If you enjoy basking in atmosphere, then you'll enjoy this more than I did.